I shot my leg out and brought it up between his legs, concentrating all my fear and hatred in the force of that blow. My shin slammed hard into his crotch. He screamed and doubled over. I jerked the chain ends from his hand, spun, and flung myself down the hall, terror and desperation propelling me forward. I felt as if I were moving in slow motion.

He recovered quickly, his scream of pain converted into a howl of anger.

?Bitch!?

I pitched down the narrow hall, nearly tripping over the dragging chain.

?You?re dead, bitch!?

I could hear him behind me, lurching through the dark, breathing like a desperate animal. ?You?re mine! You won?t get away!?

I staggered around the corner, twisting my hands, fighting to loosen the wrist chain. Blood pounded in my ears. I was a robot, my sympathetic nervous system working the controls.

?Cunt!?

He was between me and the front door, forcing me to cut through the kitchen! One thought drove me: Get to the French doors!

My right hand slipped free of the chain.

?Whore! You?re mine!?

Two steps into the kitchen the pain slammed into me again and I thought my neck had snapped. My left arm flew up and my head whipped back. He had gotten a hand on the trailing neck chain. I felt my insides heave as my air supply was again choked off.

With my unbound hand I tried to free my throat, but the harder I clawed the tighter he pulled. I twisted and pulled, but the chain only cut deeper.

Slowly, he reeled in the chain, drawing me back toward him. I could smell his frenzy, feel his body tremble in the shake of the chain. Loop by loop he shortened my leash. I began to feel dizzy, and thought I was fainting.

?You?ll pay for that, bitch.? His voice was a hiss.

My face and fingertips tingled from lack of oxygen, and my ears filled with a hollow ringing. The room began to heave about me. A spatter of dots formed in the middle of my field of vision, coalesced, then spread outward as a black cumulus. Through the growing cloud I saw ceramic tile rise toward me, as if in slow motion. I watched my hands reach out as I floated forward, an insensible host tumbling with its parasite rider.

As we pitched forward, my stomach struck a section of counter, and my head slammed into an overhead cabinet. He lost his grip on the chain, but pushed up hard behind me.

He spread his legs and molded his body against mine, pressing me against the counter. The edge of the dishwasher cut painfully across my left pelvic bone, but I could breathe.

His chest heaved, and every fiber of his tissue felt taut, like a slingshot stretched to deliver. With a looping wrist motion he retrieved his grip on the chain and forced my head into a backward arch. Then he reached across my throat and placed the tip of the knife under the angle of my jaw. My carotid throbbed against cold steel. I felt his breath on my left cheek.

He held me for an eternity, head back, hands straight out and useless, like a carcass dangling on a hook. I seemed to be watching myself from across a wide gulf, a spectator, horrified but powerless to help.

I got my right hand onto the counter, trying to push against it to elevate myself and slacken the chain. Then I touched something on the countertop. The orange juice container. The knife.

Silently, my fingers wrapped around the handle. I moaned and tried to sob. Divert his attention.

?Quiet, bitch! We?re going to play a game now. You like games, don?t you??

Carefully I rotated the knife, gagging loudly to cover the tiniest scrape.

My hand trembled, hesitated.

Then I saw the women again, saw what he?d done to them. I felt their terror and knew their final desperation.

Do it!

Adrenaline spread through my chest and limbs like lava rolling down a mountainside. If I was going to die, it would not be like a rat in a hole. I would die charging the enemy, guns blazing. My mind refocused and I became an active participant in my own fate. I gripped the knife, blade upward, and estimated the angle. Then I thrust across my body and over my left shoulder with all the strength that fear, desperation, and vengeance could muster.

The point struck bone, slipped a little, then plunged into mushy softness. His earlier scream was nothing compared with what now ripped from his throat. As he lurched backward his left hand dropped and his right hand passed across my throat. The chain end slithered to the floor, releasing its death hold.

I felt a dull ache across my throat, then something wet. It didn?t matter. All I wanted was air. I gulped hungrily, reaching up to loosen the links and feeling what I knew must be my own blood.

From behind me, another scream, high-pitched, primal, like the death cry of a feral animal. Panting and holding the counter for support, I turned to look.

He stumbled backward across the kitchen, one hand to his face, the other thrown out in an attempt at balance. Horrible sounds gurgled from his open mouth as he slammed against the far wall and slid slowly to the floor. The outthrust hand left a black streak snaking down the plaster. For a moment his head rolled back and forth, then a thin moan rose from his throat. His hands dropped and his head settled, chin down, eyes fixed on the floor.

I stood frozen in the sudden stillness, the only sounds my rasping breath and his fading whimpers. Through my pain, my surroundings began to register. Sink. Stove. Refrigerator, deathly still. Something slippery underfoot.

I stared at the form slumped inert on my kitchen floor, legs splayed forward, chin on chest, back propped against the wall. In the dimness I could see a dark smear trailing down his chest toward his left hand.

Lightning sparked like a welder?s torch, and illuminated my handiwork.

His body looked sleek, smoothed by the peacock blue membrane that encased it. A blue and red cap stretched across his scalp, flattening his hair and turning his head into a featureless oval.

The handle of the steak knife rose from his left eye like a flag pin on a putting green. Blood streamed down his face and throat, darkening the spandex on his chest. He had stopped moaning.

I gagged and the flotilla of spots sailed back into my field of vision. My knees buckled and I tried to lean against the counter.

I tried to breathe more deeply and raised my hands to my throat to remove the chain. I felt a warm slipperiness. I lowered one hand and stared. Oh yes. I?m bleeding.

I was moving toward the door, thinking of Katy, of getting help, when a sound froze me in place. The slither of steel links! The room flickered white, black.

Too beaten to run, I turned. A dark silhouette moved silently toward me.

I heard my own voice, then saw a thousand spots, and the black cloud rolled over everything.

Sirens wailing in the distance. Voices. Pressure on my throat.

I opened my eyes to light and movement. A form loomed over me. A hand pressed something against my neck.

Who? Where? My own living room. Memory. Panic. I struggled to sit up.

?Attention. Attention. Elle se leve.?

Hands pressed me gently down.

Then, a familiar voice. Unexpected. Out of context.

?Don?t move. You?ve lost a lot of blood. There is an ambulance on the way.?

Claudel.

?Where. I . . . ??

?You?re safe. We?ve got him.?

?What?s left of him.? Charbonneau.

?Katy??

?Lie back. You?ve got a gash on your throat and right neck and if you move your head, it bleeds. You?ve lost a good amount of blood and we don?t want you to lose any more.?

?My daughter??

Their faces floated above me. A bolt of lightning flared, turning them white.

?Katy?? My heart pounded. I couldn?t breathe.

?She?s fine. Anxious to see you. Friends are with her.?